ponedeljek, 09. julij 2012

1. task Croatia open 76 km

We migrated to Croatia to have some decent flying this year after shitty one day races that we mostly had this year.

First day today we had a 76 km task with flying down the ridge, and then out in the flats. It was predicted that we will fly in the area with most development around Pazin but it all turned around today.
We took off and had a nice slow thermal up to the dark clouds above us. Slowly it all became a game to have the height, proper height for starting in the 1800m CTR where our first turn point was.
We found a nice spot right on the edge of cylinder where it was possible to stay at proper weight and play with the clouds. The race began and we where racing trough the strong thermals. Some had like 9 to 10 m/s today.

Easily back to the clouds that we had above take off where we had a strong thermal again. Uut from here was a race in to the blue. We where together with Balazs, Primoz and Franc. I raced a bit too much and got caught in Motovun valley. It took me quite some time to get back in to the game. I watched Primoz thermaling more in front so I knew that the game was not lost yet.
I flew alone all the way to the goal where only Franc was waiting for me. Very turbulent air to the goal, very turbulent landing. No one made it in after us.

We lost Frim on the way under the last cloud and it looks like he got sucked in and went up to 3500m where he deployed the chute. Don`t know much more what was happening but he and the glider is ok.

Quite crazy flying at some points but all manageable. Tomorrow, what we can say, Istria, we fly again.